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McGlaughlin Wasn’t Alone in His CHA Pay Charade

Two weeks ago, the Obama Administration closed some loopholes and made official statements regarding the leaders of public housing authorities.

The administration concluded this: leading a local housing authority should not be a path to personal enrichment.

Following the McGlaughlin fiasco, where it was revealed his salary was in excess of $360,000 a year, housing authorities all over the nation were investigated – and what was investigated? The exact salaries of housing authority executive directors past and present.

Some of the results were shocking, even more outrageous than McGlaughlin’s.

In Atlanta, the head of that housing authority was found to be earning $644,000 in salary and benefits in 2010. In Los Angeles, the housing head was receiving $603,000.

The Chelsea scandal has caused the governor to set a salary ceiling for housing authority executive directors in Massachusetts at $160,000.

Chelsea’s cap is apparently now set at $135,000 although there is the belief and the hope among the new board members that something lower than that can suffice for a public housing executive director here.

McGlaughlin may not have known he was going to remake the pay scale for every housing authority head honcho when he set out to make himself the most outrageously remunerated housing authority executive director in Massachusetts – but that’s exactly what he did.

Now a grand jury has been hearing witnesses to McGlaughlin’s actions and at some point, if the state has evidence enough to implicate him in wrongdoing, he will be arrested and indicted and ultimately tried and convicted.

He will lose everything he worked near to a lifetime to accumulate and more.

And even if he isn’t indicted, he will likely lose his pension and God knows what else.

McGlaughlin will pay dearly for fleecing the city of Chelsea.

Again, those of us who knew him all wonder, how could we not have known about what he was doing?